Science Fiction, Disruption and Tourism

Ian Yeoman, Una McMahon-Beattie, Marianna Sigala

• Publisher: Channel View Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781845418694
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

This book examines science fiction's theoretical and ontological backgrounds and how science fiction applies to the future of tourism. It recreates and invents the future of tourism in a creative and disruptive manner, reconceptualising tourism through alternative and quantum leap thinking that go beyond the normative or accepted view of tourism. The chapters, focusing on areas such as disruption, sustainability and technology, draw readers into the unknown future of tourism – a future that may be disruptive, dystopian or utopian. The book brings a new theoretical paradigm to the study of tourism in a post COVID-19 world and can be used to explore, frame and even form the future of tourism. It will capture the imagination and inspire readers to address tourism's challenges of tomorrow.

Part 1

Ontological Approaches

2Science Fiction and the Future of Tourism

Ian Yeoman and Una McMahon-Beattie

Chapter Highlights

•An overview of science fiction and how it portrays the future.

•Science fiction – myth or reality, truth or explanation?

•COVID-19 and robot prostitutes of Amsterdam.

Introduction

Science fiction, known as sci-fi or SF, is a broad genre that often contains speculations based on current science and technology. It contains element of fantasy, utopia, dystopia, structured with narratives, plots, stories in which its imaginary elements are sometimes conceivable other times not (Yeoman, 2012). Wright (2018) in the paper ‘Cloning Animals for Tourism in the Year 2070’ discusses the near animal extinction because of habitat change and destruction because of climate change and humankind. As a result, Wright presents three narratives illustrating scenarios in which animals could be cloned in the future for tourism purposes. In scenario one, animals are cloned to order for luxury dining experiences. In scenario two, animals are cloned for sport hunting and in scenario three, animals are cloned for education, conservation and zoos. Does this sound far-fetched? Do you view such a scenario with a degree of scepticism? But what if the scenario were true? Or, what if we could explain how such a scenario could occur? This chapter addresses the fundamental assumptions of those questions, overviewing what is science fiction and how it portrays the future of tourism.

What is Science Fiction?

The word ‘science’ acquired its modern meaning with the realisation that reliable knowledge is rooted in the evidence of the senses, carefully sifted by deductive reasoning and the experimental testing of generalisations. In the 17th century, writers began producing speculative fictions about new discoveries and technologies that the application of scientific method might bring about, the earliest examples being accommodated rather uncomfortably within existing genres of literature and narrative frameworks (Stableford, 2003). Gunn (2003) noted that:

Science fiction started in the pulp magazines invented in 1896 by Frank A. Munsey. Mostly filled with adventure stories in a variety of locales and periods, they became more specialised beginning in 1915 with the introduction of Detective Story Monthly and then Western Story Magazine in 1919 and Love Stories in 1921. Hugo Gernsteck, an immigrant from Luxembourg had published popular science magazines with science fiction stories in them. In 1926 he mustered his resources (and his courage) and founded Amazing Stories. Soon competitors began to appear, fans and new writers were attracted and a genre was born. (Gunn, 2003: xvi)

Science fiction stories and science fiction writers had been around before, but what they wrote was not quite what we would know as science fiction and it was not even called science fiction. It was Gernsback in 1929 who came up with the name and it stuck (Gernsback & Westfahl, 1994). Before that, for example, Verne’s adventure novels, were called ‘voyages extraordinaires’, and Wells’ stories and novels were known as ‘scientific romances’. Some critics have claimed that the direction in which Gernsback moved the new category was a blind alley and that it would have better existing as a kind of mainstream variant. However, it is difficult to imagine how it would otherwise have developed its own sense of identity, a body of enthusiastic and informed writers and readers, and shared assumptions that sometimes rigidified into conventions that made it such a success. The Gernsback tradition, modified by a succession of influential magazine editors from John W. Campbell at the Astounding/Analog to Michael Moorcock of New Worlds, shaped the way science fiction developed. It is a genre that allows writers to venture where they will and invites unsolicited thought and freedom.

What are Science Fiction Writings?

One of the exemplars of science writings is Greg Egan (Burnham, 2014) who publishes works that challenge readers with rigorous, deeply informed scientific speculation. He delves into mathematics, physics and other disciplines in his writings, putting him in the vanguard of hard science fiction renaissance of the 1990s. Egan used cutting-edge scientific theory to explore ethical questions. His two major novels, Permutation City (Egan, 1994) and Schild’s Ladder (Egan, 2002), constitute a bold artistic statement that narratives of science are equal to those of poetry and drama, and that science holds a place in the human condition as exalted as religion or art. Egan’s Schlid’s Ladder is set 20,000 years in the future. Cass, a humanoid physicist from Earth, travels to the Mimosa orbital station and begins a series of experiments to test the extremities of the fictitious Sarumpaet rules, a set of fundamental equations in Quantum Graph Theory which hold that physical existence is a manifestation of complex constructions of mathematical graphs. The book is a series of ‘what if’s’ of cognitive estrangements (Mendlesohn, 2003). Cognitive estrangement is inextricability linked to the encoded nature of science fiction, to style, lexical invention and embedding. Cognitive estrangement is the sense that something in the world described in the literature is incongruous with the readers experienced world. On a basic level this difference may be achieved of time, place and technological scenery. But if that is not done, the resultant fiction is didactic, educational and overly descriptive. As Mendlesohn (2003: 5) recalls:

The technique common in early science fiction is commonly known as ‘info-dump’: a character lectures a capture audience about something they could be expected to know but which we do not. It is a very difficult thing to avoid and at the moment of conceptual breakthrough when the critical insight is won, and the world is revealed as bigger or different than one thought, it can be the only tool a writer has to convey information.

Indeed, even Egan uses this technique in Schild’s Ladder when he allows one character a two-page lecture (pp. 88–90), ‘mitigated by allowing the point of view protagonist to be slightly less familiar with the material than others in the audience, by couching this didacticism as a plea for “forbearance” on behalf of the new theory, and by allowing the point of view to assume that others in the audience are irritated’ (Mendlesohn, 2003: 5).

Science Fiction Scholarship

The teaching of science fiction was started by its fans. Sam Moskowitz taught evening classes at the City College in New York in 1953 followed by courses at Colgate University, Eastern Mexico University and the College of Wooster (Stableford, 2003). From this, other courses proliferated, not only in English departments but in physics, chemistry, anthropology and others. As the study of science fiction developed so did scholarly activity. Journals included, Extrapolation in 1959, Foundation in 1972 and Science Fiction Studies in 1973. The Science Fiction Research Association was founded in 1970 to improve classroom teaching and to encourage.

The Future

The use of ‘future’ in the English language dates back to the 14th century. It derives from the Latin futurus, meaning ‘about to be’, which became assimilated to French as ‘futuer’. Broadly speaking, future and its translation refer to the time that is to be or come hereafter. It is not clearly delineated in terms of time horizon; it may mean tomorrow, next year, the coming decade, the next 20, 30 or 50 years or even forthcoming centuries (Asselt et al., 2010). Scientific research, which is positivist in nature, is grounded in empirical research that is objective and data rich. However, data about the future cannot be gathered from surveys or in other positivist ways as the future hasn’t occurred. But here lies the conundrum, we live in a society, which is data driven and objective (Yeoman & Postma, 2014) thus the future and future studies are often dismissed based upon scepticism. This is a challenge for those working and researching in the futures industry!

Humankind did not always contemplate the future as a realm of action (Adams & Groves, 2007). In earlier times, the future was considered a sacred domain ruled by the Gods. Only in modern times did the idea arise that humans could influence or even shape the future. This view of the future as a realm of action encouraged interest in contemplating the future. The future can be engaged in a variety of ways from, for example, utopian/dystopian novels (Wells, 1902, 1977), science fiction (Yeoman & Mars, 2012) or business-style reports (https://www.foresightfactory.co/). Economists deploy econometrics to forecast the future economy. Climate models are used for a variety of purposes from the study of dynamic weather and climate systems to projections of future climate. Demographers use vital statistics that track births and deaths, combined with data such as marriage, divorce and migration to forecast populations. This approach to the future is predictive, numerate and singular. Here the future is strongly linked to the past connecting the past to the future (Yeoman & Mars, 2012). However, others hold the alternative belief that there are multiple futures as accuracy cannot be achieved with a singular, predictive approach to the future (Yeoman & McMahon-Beattie, 2005, 2014; Yeoman & Postma, 2014).

Science Fiction and the Future

At the beginnings of the 20th century, H.G. Wells anticipated that futures research would become a scientific discipline. This idea was fuelled by the post-World War II uncertainty and the need to deal with complex technologies in an uncertain world (Bell et al., 2013). As (Hales, 1969...

Table of contents

• Cover-Page
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and Table
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part 1: Ontological Approaches
• Part 2: Science Fiction
• Part 3: Disruption
• Part 4: Dystopia
• Part 5: Concluding Thoughts
• Index